


Vacancy

by angelic_ly



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: It's real angsty, M/M, Oh well!, SO, Sorry Not Sorry, and there's none of that magical potion shit, buuuuuut you couldn't tell from reading it, there's lotsa blood, this is technically set in an au where noctis isn't the prince
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 20:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15915474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelic_ly/pseuds/angelic_ly
Summary: Noctis’ eyes maintain that vacant look, even when they shine with tears. Ignis can’t possibly fathom how he can make it leave. It’s now that Ignis wonders: is it harder to be the one who died, or harder to be the one left behind?





	Vacancy

**Author's Note:**

> Written late at night while I was in the throes of depression. As such, we have no happy endings here. 
> 
> Still, I hope you enjoy.

There’s blood everywhere. It’s sticky on his skin, it’s flecked on his leather shoes, it’s soaked into his new slacks, it’s pooling on the pavement. Logically he knows that the human body must circulate some grand amount of blood to keep itself alive, but he never imagined it to be this much.

It’s everywhere. Ignis doesn’t know what to do with it all. He ignores it and kneels, clutching an old first aid kit in hands slick with red.

Prompto lays prone on the ground in front of him. His freckles stand out starkly against his paling skin as his life force drains into the pool widening beneath him. His hands are laid delicately over his torso, as if the two of them could stop the bleeding from the seven bullet wounds. He looks too weak to apply the appropriate amount of pressure regardless, Ignis notes, cracking open the kit.

Prompto’s eyes aren’t unfocused, Ignis can see that clearly, but they certainly aren’t focused on him. On his other side, Noctis is on his knees, tears in his eyes and his chest heaving as he tries to stop himself from sinking into shock so he can be useful.

All at once, Noctis’ hands are covering two more bullet wounds. With the two that Prompto’s barely taking care of, there’s still three left. Ignis is cutting away the fabric of Prompto’s shirt, swatting away their hands entirely to get the bloodstained thing off.

It’s absolutely dripping. He could have been disillusioned into thinking it was water if the shirt wasn’t white. Prompto never wears white; the shirt is from a charity food drive he was participating in. The previously-blue logo glares out at him in the light of the dusk and the fluorescent street lamps, glinting off of the tragedy before him. Ignis lets it splat to the ground, forgotten, as he turns back to Prompto.

Noctis looks just as saturated in blood as Ignis is, but for the sake of swiftness Ignis tries to ignore the trauma this will surely leave behind. He pulls gauze and bandages from the kit, and it’s only after he starts trying to treat the wounds that he realizes how fruitless his efforts are.

Prompto’s breaths are shallow and rattling. His hands lay at his sides, exactly where Ignis had lain them before to get off the shirt. Ignis’ hands are unsteady as they still attempt to dress slick wounds. Noctis is still desperately applying pressure, trying to blink the tears out of his eyes as he stares down at Prompto’s dotted, sheet-like face. Distantly, Ignis hears Gladio on the phone with the police, or some nearby hospital, or someone who’s meant to help and will send an ambulance that surely won’t get here in time.

Prompto seems to be aware of his final moments. He lifts a weak, trembling hand to Noctis’ cheek, streaking blood across the pale skin. “You know,” he rasps, his voice just as weak as his body, “It’s funny. I think I’m in love with you.”

And it’s something that hits everyone like a brick. It’s not directed at him, yet Ignis still feels his heart shatter. Prompto had told him about this. Prompto had told him that he was going to wait until Noctis’ birthday, that he was going to pull him aside and confess to him then, hopefully under a sky bright with stars and moonlight, and if he’d gotten a yes he’d kiss him. _“And it would be like fireworks, like in the cheesy romance stories,”_ Prompto had said, those same fireworks alight in his eyes.

Noctis’ birthday is in two weeks.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Noctis breathes out, eyes wide, hot tears cutting through the blood on his cheek. He doesn’t bother wiping them away. “Fuck you, Prompto. I love you too.”

He takes Prompto’s face into shaking, crimson-stained hands and he kisses him. It’s wrong that it happened this way, Ignis thinks as he watches the two new lovers in their final moments together. It’s cruel. They should have gotten to grow old together. They should have gotten to go on their first date. They should have gotten to get engaged, to get married. They should have, they should have, they should have. It whirls endlessly in Ignis’ head. They should have gotten so much. But they won’t.

 

The paramedics arrive long after the light has left Prompto’s eyes and his body has gone limp. The moment the sound of the sirens reaches him, Noctis’ broken sobs stop, a vacant-eyed mask sliding over his face. Noctis stands and forces himself away; Ignis can’t bring himself to do the same.

Ignis remains in the same spot until he’s carefully bodily dragged away so the officials can throw a sheet over Prompto’s cooling body. Ignis is in shock. Noctis has gone numb. Gladio only stares, silent. Everything about this is wrong.

The remaining survivors are carted off to give their accounts on the situation. What exactly happened? How did it happen, and when? Where? Who was the killer? Where are they now? Ignis answers all the questions robotically, as do the others. It’s not registering in their minds. It’s not registering that Prompto is gone -- dead.

The doctor’s words sound hollow and they echo uselessly in his mind. Ignis only distantly feels the physical pain plaguing his body. Not all the blood on his clothes is Prompto’s; one bullet grazed the side of his neck, one is embedded near his shoulder, another shot straight through his arm. He doesn’t truly feel it -- it doesn’t compare to the ache inside of his heart.

By all means, the rest of them are severely injured. Ignis’ arm is in a sling, Gladio is restrained by his crutches, and Noctis -- heartbreak. Maybe his soul is broken, too. Physically, he’s fine, with barely a graze on his arm. But that vacancy won’t leave his eyes. None of them noticed their own ailments in the face of Prompto’s injuries. There hadn’t been any time. They had refused to accept him as a lost cause. They did everything they could think to do and _still_ \--

Even now, standing over the headstone, it doesn’t feel real. The funeral itself will forever be imprinted in Ignis’ mind, even if he can’t recall the finer points. The tidbits of his farewell are stained in the suit he wore, and Noctis’ tears from after the service soak his handkerchief. The weight will always be in his heart and his mind and his very soul, the weight of guilt and _what if_ and, though he’s reluctant to admit it, pity.

Noctis’ eyes maintain that vacant look, even when they shine with tears. Ignis can’t possibly fathom how he can make it leave. It’s now that Ignis wonders: is it harder to be the one who died, or harder to be the one left behind?

**Author's Note:**

> Next time I get a murder boner, I'm going after Ignis.


End file.
